The fruits of cooperation in agrofood
Canada and the Netherlands cooperate to bring innovative, high tech systems to farming and horticulture, working together to produce food that is grown in an efficient and sustainable way.
Dutch-Canadian robot sniffs out pests in greenhouses
IRIS! is a fully autonomous robot that monitors the health of greenhouse crops and gives information about yield, climate and environment. IRIS! scoutrobot is the fruit of Canadian-Dutch cooperation.
IRIS’ brain was developed by Ecoation in Canada, and it’s body in the Netherlands by Metazet-Formflex and Micothon. IRIS! won the GreenTech Concept Award in 2018. The technology is currently used in the greenhouse industry in the Netherlands and is also being rolled out from Canada to Mexico.
Read the interview with Ecoation co-founder Saber Miresmailli.
Canadian-Dutch ultra green greenhouses
Growing food sustainably is becoming ever more important worldwide. But going green is not good enough for Canadian tomato grower Casey Houweling. That’s why he thought up an energy efficient, innovative, virtually pesticide free greenhouse system.
Dutch prime greenhouse experts KUBO have built the ultra-green greenhouses for Houweling at locations across North America.
Joining forces to get plant proteins to dinner plates
Plant-based diets are gaining popularity for reasons of sustainability and health. Canada and the Netherlands have joined forces to research ways to extract plant proteins and get them to people’s plates.
The Dutch Wageningen University & Research and Canadian company Botaneco have signed an agreement to extract, process and commercialize protein from oily crops like canola. The collaboration stems from particular strengths: Canada has expertise in the production and processing of high quality proteins in large volumes, and the Netherlands in breeding high quality proteins, product development, food processing and commercialization.
Innovation in agriculture: 5 interviews
Canadian and Dutch-Canadian entrepeneurs talk about their innovative projects in the agrofood sector in Canada.
- Aart Schuurman of Goodly Foods collects surplus food products and turns them into soups, sauces and stews.
- Ecoation's Saber Miresmailli builds technology that probes crops to assess their health.
- Terramera's Annet Rozek about big, hairy and audacious cleantech goals.
- AI Systems' Robert Vahedi about nursery robots and other agro-AI.
- Casey Houweling of Houweling's tomatoes is taking care of tomatoes ánd the earth.